Legend has it that one Master Wang rode off on a white crane to the land of the immortals, but who is the “White Crane Poet”? No one seems to know. The fact that Cheng Hui (fl. 1210), known for his bold commentary on poets famous and infamous, would not address this poet by name leads me to think that this is not a poem by Cheng. I include it here only because the publisher, thinking that the collection needed more poems to appear substantial, pressured me. [Eds. Mr. Bradley must be confused. No such stipulation was ever made.]

Complaint of Meng Chiao’s Neglected Wife

Me, reproach my dear, absent husbandOr his favorite bamboo, now mottled and sickly?Each night before bed, I squat in the garden Beside his bamboo, missing him as I do.

Meng Chiao (751-814) was a close friend of Han Yu’s (768-824). Han Yu once commented on the starkness of Meng’s poetry in this way: “The bones of poetry poke at the skin of Meng Chiao.” Cheng responds to Meng’s “Complaint of a Neglected Wife,” where the wife quietly states, “My reproach is like the mottled bamboo.” Cheng apparently felt Meng often abandoned his wife while he went off with his poet friends to drink wine and gossip about the “poetry business,” as Meng called it. Cheng is not the only poet critical of Meng. Su Shih (Su Tung-po, 1036-1101) complained about Meng’s poetry, describing it as a “cold cicada’s call.” Su Shih would don two or three heavily padded winter gowns and then sip dragon fire tea before he was able to read one of Meng’s poems.

Mei Yao-Ch’en and the Melon Girl

The crescent moon shines.Your family sleeps despitethe howling of a hungry dog. You slip out the back doorand cling to shadow all the wayalong the edges of the field to the hut of the melon girl. No wonder her teapot overflowswith bronze coins.

In his poem “Melon Girl,” Mei Yao-Ch’en (1002-1179) says that the girl who sells melons “has handfuls of bronze money.” Cheng Hui (fl. 1210) takes this as an accusation by Mei that she is selling more than melons, and offers a lesson on hypocrisy, though whether this was deserved we will never know. Rexroth would be harping (or “ch’ining,” as we Chinese translators like to say, punning on the term for the Chinese harp, the “ch’in”) on the sexuality in the last two lines. Mei, like his friend Ou-yang Hsiu, wrote poetry on the backs of crows, rats, earthworms, and fleas. Some critics say it was a reaction to the ornate poetry of the Late T’ang. Or maybe they just got bored.

For Li Po [a.k.a. Li Pai], Peeping

You peep through her window—but that’s all right. You only wish

to study her face. You watch her remove her white stockings—

that’s all right. You need to steal her gesture for a sad poem

about a sad woman under a sad autumn moon.

We’re talking here about Art. You’re a Poet. Shame

passes through youlike cheap wine.

Tu Fu (712-770) allegedly once said of his friend: “For Li Po, it’s a hundred poems per gallon of wine.” But Cheng Hui (fl. 1210) isn’t concerned here with Li Po’s (701-762) drinking habits. He’s bothered by liberties male Chinese poets took in appropriating women’s voices, such as in Li Po’s “Jade-Staircase Grievance.” I find it rather unlikely that Li Po was a peeping tom; he was probably just looking for the lady’s wine jug. Cheng’s complaint here has merit, but Cheng is guilty of the same literary crime. See his “Complaint of Meng Chiao’s Neglected Wife.” More likely, Cheng was jealous of Li Po’s fame.

Li Pai (701-762), along with Tu Fu, is considered China’s most renowned poet, though I’m not sure why. He would often sign his poems with variations on his last name (in one instance Rihaku), no doubt due to the influence of wine, of which he was much-influenced. Chingting Mountain was indeed a mountain. It can still be found five kilometers northwest of Hsuan-cheng, exactly where it was at the time Li Po visited it and wrote his poem “Sitting Alone on Chingting Mountain.” Cheng Hiu (fl. 1210) was no doubt inspired by Li Po’s poem and perhaps by his own visit to Chingting Mountain (and sampling of the local wine?). While Cheng holds a piece of the mountain in his hand, he seems a part of it and apart from it at the same time. This theme of the outsider runs through most of his poetry. Another translation of the last line might read—”Inside this rock, a hole in the cosmos.”